HAVE NIGERIAN CHURCHES CRASHED BEFORE COVID-19?
By Felix Nyerhovwo Jarikre.
My view is not a popular one. Nigerian churches went down without a fight. I don't see them recovering from their misstep. Nigerian churches squandered their moral capital the moment they allowed their doors to be shut by the government due to the fear of COVID-19. Worse, they never took a leadership role in their decision to shut their doors, preventing their followers from meeting on days of fellowship.
Admittedly, COVID-19 is a frightening pandemic. Many deaths across countries have been traced to it. Some countries are in a race to develop vaccine to combat COVID-19. Experts have told us the disease is more threatening in a person whose immune system has weakened or broken down.
We should also not be fast to forget that the pandemic is surrounded by all sorts of misinformation, conspiracy theories and bullying, both intellectual and political. In this sinister atmosphere, is it villainous or wrong to exercise some healthy scepticism?
Theologically and traditionally, Nigerian churches had always boasted they were not set apart to partake of any pandemic. In their preachings and prayers, they held forth the idea they could never be victimized by any disease or plague. In their teachings and proclamations, Nigerian churches insisted that they enjoyed divine immunity against any disease. When the push came to shove, why couldn't they show the courage of convictions?
By shutting their doors without any resistance to government's order, Nigerian churches showed they lacked the spine to stand and fight for their convictions. Most importantly, they revealed clearly they had not been operating from the place of good conscience.
After all, contradicting the New Testament, many church leaders had brazenly sold the idea their church buildings were SANCTIFIED BY FAITH AS PLACES OF WORSHIP!! In other words, that the only place their followers could meet and serve God was a physical church building on Sunday. There, inside the church building, angels were rapidly released to supply the miracles of everyone in need!
It never occurred to them to recant from the treachery of this idea.
Now that they were forced by government to shut down their church buildings, and keep social distancing, it is expected that Nigerian church leaders should have vigorously protested on the basis that the health, prosperity and success of their followers would be extremely jeopardized without gathering to WORSHIP GOD in their SANCTIFIED church buildings and altars. Haven't they always cajoled church attendees to roll on altars at the close of service for angels to minister miracles to the humble ones?
Have they not made a habit of placing a lone chair by the altar where the impression is sold that anyone who come forward to drop some cash before touching the chair would receive a fast miracle from the invisible angel sitting on the lone chair?
In a time like this, one expected our erstwhile vociferous church leaders to show up their faces in courageous leadership, but instead they buckled and fled into hiding.
True to his convictions as a 'healing minister', Pastor Chris Oyakhilome kicked, but his fellow senior colleagues, concerted by Pastor Sam Adeyemi, threw him under the bus. No sir, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome wasn't 'PANDERING TO FEAR'. He had the courage to question a lockdown that his fellow pastors cravenly acquiesced to. Clearly, many Nigerian Christian leaders LACKED GOOD CONSCIENCE.
To save face, the church leaders latched unto Isaiah 26:20 which they massively circulated on social media:
Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.
Nothing can be more blasphemous, seditious and speculative than for a New Testament church to take refuge in Isaiah 26:20.
How can you tell a believer whose CONSCIENCE was PURGED by the blood of Christ in order to RECEIVE the ETERNAL INHERITANCE to HIDE from INDIGNATION?
How can you tell a believer whose CONSCIENCE was already PERFECTED and SANCTIFIED to flee in terror from an unseen adversary called COVID-19?
When your fear toward God is taught by the precepts of W.H.O., the exposure of your hypocrisy is inevitable.
Our church leaders should have kept quiet, covered their faces in shame, and wept a little to show some remorse.
